A new pro football league announced Wednesday it plans to begin hiring players in winter 2017 and staging games in summer 2018.

The Pacific Pro Football League is for players who have graduated from high school but aren't in college and haven't been out for three years in order to make themselves eligible for the NFL. The four-team league, based in Southern California, says it will pay players an average salary of $50,000 and play eight games "under professional football rules, protocols and style," according to a statement sent out by the league.

Each team will have 50 players, according to the league, with coaches coming from the professional and college ranks. The players will also receive paid tuition and books at local community colleges.

I love the concept and have been wishing something like this was available for a while. It'll be interesting to see if this picks up and what impact it has on college ball.

I really dont see this working out. Everyone wants it, but it wont happen because everyone apparently is footballed out by february. Every other sport goes on until like june so...

But they're planning on running in the summer tho, another article I read said they're looking at an 8 week schedule in July and August, so it'll be before the NFL season and in that dead season where there's nothing but baseball on. I think they'd be smart to push that timeline forward a bit so it kicks in as the NBA Finals are wrapping up and the playoffs aren't competing with the few NFL preseason games that are actually halfway worth watching. They're also not looking for a huge audience, by setting salaries at $50k they show where they expect the market for this to be, and I think they're pretty close. I also wouldn't be surprised if a couple years in the NFL kicks some money their way if it proves to be better at developing players.